Lua
by lostmarble
Summary: What do you do when you're old when you're young? 'What is simple in the moonlight by the morning never is.' Roy centric, no pairing yet. Newly updated, with a first chapter.
1. By the Morning, They'll Be Gone

_**Disclaimer:** Don't own Bright Eyes' "Lua," "Morning Glow" from the musical Pippin, or Fullmetal Alchemist. The plot is all mine. _**

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**"By the Morning, They'll Be Gone"**

"I know that it is freezing but I think we have to walk  
I keep waving at the taxis; they keep turning their lights off  
But Julie knows a party at some actor's west side loft  
Supplies are endless in the evening; by the morning they'll be gone."

-Bright Eyes, "Lua"

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A man is standing on the corner, in a pool of wan, yellow light from the streetlight overhead. His dark hair bleeds into the night, the two indistinguishable. He doesn't seem to be doing anything, just waiting, his breath making faint clouds of steam, as from a machine. 

His arms are crossed against the cold, but his stance is stiff, his chin set at a defiant and precise right angle to his neck. His eyes are narrowed, and he stares down the street.

Watching.

Waiting.

Finally, a set of headlights appears in the distance, and, as it nears, he raises his hand to flag it down. It slows, but the driver, seeing his royal blue military garb, speeds up again, flicking the "for hire" light off as he passes.

The man's eyes narrow even more, and he curses the military for its ruled against plainclothes personnel, unless they are undercover. (Even then, they're not so hard to spot; he knows he keeps his tight posture even in sweatpants. He's spent years making himself the perfect soldier, and only recently realized that it was at the expense of nearly every other facet of his life. He knows that if he is asked to go undercover, he will have to buy new clothing. The only thing in his wardrobe besides his uniforms is a single pair of sweatpants to sleep in. He doesn't know how long it's been that way.)

He had been planning to attend a party thrown by a childhood friend, but he's deciding weather it's worth the ten block walk from the hotel that he has been staying in, to her loft on the upper west side of the city.

Seeming to reach a decision, he turns precisely—as precise as his gait, his stance—and steps out of the circle of light, melting into the darkness.

It will be morning in a few hours—if he has to be at the office by 07:00 hours, it's time for him to rest his eyes. If he is honest with himself, he's not young enough to stay up all night partying, working all day.

Long ago they were—once he was a creature of the night.

Such sentiments from a man who's lived only 29 years.

As he figures it, that's about 60 in military years, and he's seen more than a normal man would by 80.

By these definitions, he's an old man.

The spark is dying out, becoming an ember, but he can still light the fires of revolution. .

He ages with the coming of the day, and, morbidly, hums an old tune under his breath:

"Morning glow, morning glow  
Starts to glimmer when you know  
Winds of change are set to blow  
And sweep this whole land through  
Morning glow is long past due."


	2. My Window Reflection

Disclaimer: Don't own Bright Eyes' "Lua" or Full Metal Alchemist.

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**"My Window Reflection"**

"When everything gets lonely I can be my own best friend  
I get a coffee and the paper; have my own conversations  
With the sidewalk and the pigeons and my window reflection  
The mask I polish in the evening, by the morning looks like shit."

-Bright Eyes, "Lua"

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People will tell you that the time when they feel the most lonely is the night. That they're afraid to face the darkness alone.

Don't believe them.

The mornings are the time when I feel the solitude the most. I'm at my most vulnerable, then: half asleep, I reach for the warm body next to me, only to realize that there's nobody there. Or, worse, the person that _is_ there doesn't matter to me in the slightest. Then…I'm more alone than ever.

Then…I wake up to the fact that I am _truly_ alone.

And, for only a moment, the heart of Colonel Roy Mustang, the infamous, fearless Flame Alchemist, skips a painful beat.

I'm not the only one of course. Who knows how many thousands upon thousands of us wake up each morning with the same terrible, aching hollowness in the pits of our stomachs? It's as mundane as it is omnipresent, this empty space that doesn't fade away after my morning coffee, though it leaves the same bitter taste in my mouth.

Can't erase or displace it—nothing doing.

So I brush my teeth and, catching my reflection in the window next to my front door, watch as my mask falls into place.


End file.
